CHICOPEE – A group of Boy Scouts has been beautifying city streets one fire hydrant at a time.

For his community service project to earn the highest award in Scouting, Thomas Niemiec, 16, decided to help the city by volunteering to scrape and paint fire hydrants in three different neighborhoods.

“I wasn't sure what to do for my Eagle Scout and a while ago my mom told me about Boy Scouts who came around and painted fire hydrants near our house. I called the Water Department and he (director Alan Starczyk) said that sounded great,” Niemiec said.

Every year the Water Department hires three or four students for summer work and has them paint fire hydrants, along with doing other jobs regular employees don't get to do. But the crew only has limited time and does a small percentage of the fire hydrants in the city, Starczyk said.

There are more than 3,200 hydrants throughout the city and on a good year the crew manages to paint 400 to 500 of them. Starczyk said he was thrilled to have Niemiec volunteer to do some of the work.

“They are thick and cast iron so rarely do they crack, but as far as the look of a neighborhood goes, it does a lot for it,” he said. “That is a smallest thing but it gets the most notice.”

Starczyk supplied the boys with the yellow and red paint, the brushes, scrapers and safety vests and gave him a quick lesson on how to paint the hydrant to make sure it can still be opened if needed.

He also pulled out a map of all the fire hydrants in the city and assigned Troop 131 to three neighborhoods that had not been done in a while, including the Szot Park area which was freshened up for the Fest of All the July 4 fireworks.

“We gave him a map of all the fire hydrants and told him to check them off on the map when they painted them,” he said.

All summer, Niemiec has been organizing about 10 members of Troop 131 to go out at different times to paint hydrants street-by-street. So far, they have painted about 150 hydrants and hope to do at least 50 more by the end of September.

Following Starczyk's recommendations, they have been mainly in the area around Szot Park, the Ferry Lane neighborhood and in Willimansett, Niemiec said.

It hasn't been easy. First they were delayed by frequent rain and then there was the heat wave in July that they sweated through. He also has to schedule things around his work schedule as well as his fellow members vacations, work and other activities.

“Sometimes, it is kind of hot and unpleasant. I have to make sure everyone was hydrated,” he said.

But with the project, Niemiec said he has grown to be a better and faster painter. Before the project he had little experience with a brush.

“Some of them are easy and it takes me 10 or 15 minutes,” he said. “Some of them are coated in rust and you just scrape and scrape and scrape.”

A member of Troop 131 since he was 6 years old, Niemiec said he has enjoyed camping and many of the other activities he has done as a Boy Scout and the close friendships he has made with other members.

“We go places other people don't usually go,” he said.

Once the painting is complete, Niemiec, who is entering his junior year at Chicopee High School, will write a report on his project and submit a portfolio to be reviewed by the Eagle Board, which will then likely grant him his Eagle Scout award.

He said he will continue on with the troop even after the award is granted and help his friends work toward their Eagle Scout badges as well. At 18 he will be eligible to be a leader if he wants.